Sacrifice: Freedom's Price
by RCjunior
Summary: Caim and Angelus have spent a vast amount of time with one another, time which was about to run out for Angelus. She has chosen to be the next bearer for the Seal of the Goddess. Through a  strange series of events, Caim stands before Lightning Farron! :O


Sacrifice: Freedom's Price

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A white church, battered and destroyed housed the ceremony for the creation of the next goddess. Only three people bore witness to what happened on that fateful day, and only two lived to speak of it. Hierarch Verdelets' chants were growing in strength and volume, agitating the already distraught Caim. Oh how he wished he could stop this, but it wasn't his choice to make. The world needed a bearer to the Seal of the Goddess... And the dragon volunteered as the candidate.

A strange noise was now emanating from the direction of the Hierarch. Almost as if the space around the sigil was being distorted. Finally, the paper disappeared all together. Leaving behind the symbols, suspended in air through nothing but sheer willpower on Verdelets' sake. The edges of the large oval in the middle extended out from their original place, wrapping around the dragon. She roared in pain for a few moments, then settled, somewhat,

"_There is but one thing I wish for you to remember"_ his pact-partner had said, bringing more tears to the already crying Caim "_Angelus… My name is Angelus_." Her voice was so low and constrained. At the thought of losing the only person who could, literally, see into his head, made Caim weep tears of regret. For all of the adventure they could have had,a dn of all the ways they could have died, this was not how he had wanted it. "_Do not weep for me, human. For you need to rebuild this world. There is a chance for peace."_ He could no longer speak, due to his pact with such a powerful creature, but his partner can hear his thoughts. Caim thought angrily and mournfully these words:

"_To hell with peace! This world is damned anyway! I want to leave this disgusting planet and be with you!"_ The dragon managed to pull off a strained laugh _"Typical human. Your plight ways heavy on my heart, so I will fulfill one of your requests, and give you a compromise in the other. But I must ask of _you_, do you remember when we had first made out pact?"_ Caim nodded slowly, not sure what she was getting at _"Good. Then the knowledge of what to do next will be pointless for me to reiterate. Watch carefully._" Starting at her tail, the dragon began to evaporate, turning into grains of pure energy. Energy which then went above the dragon, to become a ball, resembling the same one that resides in every living being, It twisted and coiled around until no ragged edge remained.

Hierarch Verdelet was about to send this energy off toward the sky, as they had originally planned, but Caim had heard a voice. The voice of Angelus calling out to him. Only a single word was shared between the two, before her head disappeared. "_RUN!"_

Caim made a dash for ball of energy, picking up his sword along the way, not once breaking stride. He jumped once and kicked off the Altar, using it to propel him further toward his goal. He extended his left hand forward trying to grab at it. "_Come on…_" he thought in his head. "_Come on…_" mere millimeters away the pact had broken and the first words he had said in, what seemed like, forever, were finally spoken; "Come on_!_" At that he smashed into the orb at full force. But just as it seemed he was about to pass through the other side, he didn't. He just kept on going.

The orb looked like a tunnel of swirling light now. With blurry, constantly changing faces and voices of people both familiar and unknown. One voice in particular rang true to his ear, as if calling out to him, a female for sure, but one he had never heard before. Suddenly, all the other hallucinations stopped and just hers was being displayed before him. She had strawberry blonde hair, ending about a half-inch above her chest. Wearing a white overcoat on top of a brown turtleneck. She had some sort of magic pauldron on her left shoulder. The glowing yellow lines symbolized the rank of a Sergeant. Curious. Attached to a clamp on her left shoulder blade, a red cape. She wore knee-high black boots and for leg garments she wore only a brown half-dress over some sort of, cut off pants. How strange. Attached to her left leg was a holster… To the most amazing blade he had ever seen! The metal itself seemed to move in a wave-like pattern, ending with a pointed edge each time. And several times during this vision, had he seen this blade change shape. Folding and unfolding into multiple different forms.

Suddenly he heard the woman speak again. "Lets move." There were multiple people running with her, a young boy, a large man, a darker skinned older man and what looked like a younger, less aged model of the mysterious, red-haired beauty. Suddenly, the whole group stopped as one. They all looked uneasy. I didn't exactly feel like myself either. Suddenly he noticed something, the end of the tunnel looked as if it was growing nearer and it stopped continuing for eternity. The woman spoke again "Do you feel that? It doesn't seem right." As he approached the end of the tunnel, I heard her speak one last time "Something's coming." And all went white


End file.
